Chapter 37: A Corner for My Voice

Chapter 37: A Corner for My Voice

It's time for dinner on Sunday. We sat down at the table and, after sharing the dishes in a complicit silence, I looked up, stared at him and told him the words that had been maturing in my chest since we set foot on the island:

"Ethan, I'm ready.

He didn't need me to explain anything else. She gave me such a warm smile, full of so much understanding and tenderness, that I felt a relief in my stomach. He stood, took my hand gently, and led me down the hallway to a section of the house I hadn't seen, a wooden door that had been ajar all week.

"This is yours alone, Astrid," she said in a whisper, as she pushed the door slowly.

As it opened completely, I gasped. Before my eyes appeared a bright studio, designed very much in the rustic style of the island but decorated with subtle and delicate feminine touches. In the center, rested a light wood desk, and on top of it, a brand new laptop, a notebook of white sheets, colored pencils, sticky notes, and every little stationery detail a writer needs to start creating.

I cried. I really cried. Tears rolled down my cheeks uncontrollably, but they were tears of pure, overwhelming happiness.

"Is it really mine?" I asked, my voice breaking, looking into space. Do I really have something in this life that belongs only to me?

I threw myself into his arms and hugged him with all the strength I had in my body. Ethan welcomed me to his chest and his clean, genuine laughter filled every corner of the house. It was the laughter of a man who sees that his effort has been worth it, who feels happy to see that someone treasures his dedication and that, for that person, his "small detail" represents a huge universe. He told me all this without articulating a single word; He transmitted it to me with the firmness of his embrace, with the vibration of his chest and with the light of his gaze. Like two broken souls that the world had stopped seeing, we were healing each other at the end of the world. It is something completely illogical for others, crazy for those who judge from the outside, but it is the absolute truth of our lives.